All players responsible for win or defeat: Gautam Gambhir

Opener Gautam Gambhir today backed the under-fire Indian bowlers, saying they alone cannot be blamed for defeats and the responsibility of a result lies with all the 11 players of the side.

India had very expensive last two overs in the Rajkot ODI, where England scored a huge 325 runs and won the match by nine runs. However, Gambhir said it would be wrong to paint the bowlers as villain as the side prepares for the second ODI, here tomorrow "Only bowlers don't win the match for you. All the 11 players that get on to the field have to do it for you. Whenever the batsmen don't do well, bowlers cover up for them and vice versa. I don't believe in blaming one area of the game. I think the bowlers are putting in all the hard work, and the way they won the match for us against Pakistan (inDelhi) was commendable," Gambhir said.

"There has been just one match in this series, andunfortunately the problem here is after every defeat we starttalking about form. That's not the way to look at it, we haveto look at a broader picture," the left-handed batsmen said.Gambhir said there was no need to be harsh on ganglypaceman Ishant Sharma and argued that the England bowlers too struggled in the first game."I think he has done well in the three matches against Pakistan coming back after such a long time. Its just thelast game that things didn't go his way. But he is working hard and he has been bowling really well and the results arethere for you to see."If England scored 325, we managed to score 316. So therewasn't much difference between their bowlers and our bowlers."

Gambhir, who scored 52 in Rajkot, said good starts have to be converted into big ones but said they were chasing such a huge total in the fist match that they could not avoid playing good shots even in the middle-overs.

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